You Do Have Time For Breakfast! Microwave Omelette In A Mug ~ Back To School Breakfast Hacks!!

Today we continue with our back to school breakfast hacks!  This one is going out to all my dorm dwellers!  Folks who live in dorms.  If you are away a college, in the military or in a situation where you are required to live on site for work or any other reason.  This is for you!  Omelette in a mug is simple, quick and delicious and you can make this just about anywhere!

The first trick is to make sure you have a good quality porcelain mug.  I have a stoneware soup mug that I will be using to make my omelette.  A heavy tempered glass mug or even a small bowl will work as well.  Just don't use plastic here.  You, of course can also use a microwave omelette maker if you choose.  I have one, but for today's demonstration I will be using my soup mug.  

What do you like in your omelette?  That is the question!  You make your omelette the way you like it.  Today I am going to start out by spraying my mug with a bit of coconut oil spray and then adding my eggs.  Do you like two or three?  Use the number you like best!  I am cracking in two eggs and a splash of milk or cream, then adding some mix ins that are my favorite for this type of omelette.  

I have prepared a couple tablespoons of mushroom, diced bell pepper, chopped Roma tomato,  and sliced green onion for the veggies.  I am also adding a couple of sliced brown and serve sausages along with about 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese.    Go ahead and toss it all in there and mix it up well with the egg mixture. 

Give everything  a good pat so that it is all submerged and pop this into the microwave for 1 minute on high.  Then take it out and stir it well with the fork and return it back to the microwave for another minute on high.  Stir again, if needed.  Then if it is not cooked all the way cook for 30 second intervals, inspecting in between for doneness.  My omelette took 3 minutes total.  Then I allowed it to sit in the mug for one minute before removing it to a plate to enjoy.

You can leave your omelette in the mug and enjoy it that way with a little more cheese, a bit of salsa and sour cream or you can remove it to a plate and toast a bagel and enjoy it like I did with some sliced avocado.  You can also cut this in half and wrap it in a warm tortilla or even stuff it into a pita or stack it on an English muffin with a slice of cheese for an awesome breakfast on the go!  Don't forget that this is just a great meal in general!  This omelette is a great option for breakfast, lunch or dinner!  Whenever you are craving a good meal but don't want to go out for it, make this and be happy!

These are easy to prep and you can do a bunch of chopping, slicing and dicing all at one time an either portion in sandwich bags or keep them in a container in your fridge.  When you are ready to mix them up bam!  Omelettes are done!  

So, if you are living in a situation where your only method of cooking is a microwave, pony up!  Make yourself one of these delicious omelettes and go crazy with your own original combinations!  What leftovers do you have?  Make it yours!  How about a B.L.T. omelette?  Or a pizza omelette?  Leftover spaghetti and meatball omelette?  Grilled chicken and veggie omelette?  So many choices!  Eggs are a great source of protein and they are cheap!  They are easy to find and you have room for them in your tiny little fridge that your microwave sits on top.    Even if you don't have to cook it in the microwave, give it a try because I think the results may surprise you!

I hope you do try this microwave omelette in a mug and I hope you love it!

Happy Eating!

You can see how I made this in my YouTube Video:

Come Sail Away to the Islands! Double Jerk Chicken!!

Today I am making a double jerk chicken.  This chicken is called double jerk because we are marinated the chicken in a wet jerk marinade and then grilling it over an open flame and then dousing it with a delicious, sweet and spicy Caribbean style BBQ sauce.  This chicken is THE BOMB!  Seriously!  The combination of the spicy marinated chicken and the sweet and spicy sauce is to die for!

I have used chicken thighs, which is kind of a departure for me.  I don't often use them and certainly don't use them bone in and skin on, but in this instance because they are going to be cooked over a very hot, open charcoal flame, I went this route.  This will help the chicken to stay moist and tender and retain it's juiciness.  In the end, this grilled double jerk chicken was so delicious, I may be a convert to chicken thighs!

The marinade for this is full of the flavors of the Caribbean!  Doing a bit of research, using what I already know about jerk marinade and consulting my friend Liza, I have put together, what I think is a super easy, user friendly marinade that anyone can make, no matter where they live!  

Traditionally, Jerk is heavy on the heat that comes from Scotch Bonnet peppers.  I have a hard time finding those locally and do not have them growing in my garden, but will be on the lookout for some seeds for future planting!  Then we built the marinade with a citrus base.  Orange, pineapple and lime juices were added along with green onion, sweet onion, fresh grated ginger, Habanero pepper, olive oil and all the spices that you know should go in a good jerk.  Allspice, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and of course onion powder, garlic powder salt and pepper as well as fresh thyme.  You can use dry thyme, but the fresh thyme really gives the jerk something special you don't get from the dried version.

I wazzed this all up in my drink blender and poured it into a zip top bag with the chicken thighs.  We allowed this to marinate for about an hour and a half before placing on the very hot grill for five minutes per side.    When the chicken was cooked through, it may have looked burned, but that is beautiful and flavorful char that is sought after in a good jerk chicken!  We slathered on some of my homemade sweet and spicy Caribbean style BBQ sauce and let it set to a nice shellac.  Then we removed it from the grill and allowed it to rest for about five minutes before serving.

This chicken was tender and juicy with over the top flavor.  Trust me, you won't be disappointed with this meal! 

I hope you give this double jerk chicken a try and I hope you love it!

Happy Eating!

You can see how I made this double jerk chicken in my YouTube video here:

Noreen's Kitchen

 Jamaican Style Marinade

Ingredients

1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon onion powder 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon  salt

1 teaspoon cracked black pepper 6 green onions, chopped 1 medium sweet onion, chopped 1/4 cup fresh lime juice 1-2  habanero peppers 1/2 cup orange juice 1/2 cup pineapple juice 6-8 sprigs fresh thyme

Step by Step Instructions

Place all ingredients into the vessel of a food processor or high speed blender.

Mix well to liquefy.

Pour marinade over chicken pieces and allow to marinate for at least one hour before grilling, baking or broiling.

Discard any unused marinade to avoid cross contamination.

Enjoy!

You can get a printable copy of this recipe by clicking here: http://bit.ly/29WC6Ex

Noreen's Kitchen Basics: Classic Cream Puff Dough AKA Choux Paste!

Today a kitchen basic!  Cream puff dough or what is commonly called choux paste in the culinary world is a wonderful and basic recipe to have in your box, binder or under your belt!  Knowing how to make these delicious puffs of goodness is a wonderful thing to know!  You will mesmerize and amaze your friends with your cooking prowess and might I say you may even impress yourself.

This dough or paste is easy to fix with ingredients that you have on hand and in the end will render you a multitude of options as to how to prepare it.  This dough is often used to make cream puff shells, but it is also the same dough that is used to make eclairs, beignets, churros, gugeres, and cruller donuts.  

This is a rich thick paste, more than a "dough" and it uses lots of eggs as a leavener that will make these puff and expand to an airy, crispy goodness.  They are similar in nature to a popover or Yorkshire pudding only there is no fat involved in the cooking process and you don't dispense the dough into a vessel for baking.  These make a great dinner roll with a twist and you will find it hard to stop eating them because of their light deliciousness.

I recently said to a friend of mine who was excited to hear I was making this that these are so easy to make it is almost embarrassing.  That is the truth!  You bring milk, butter, salt and a tiny bit of sugar to a simmer and then add flour and stir together to make a thick paste that is done when it begins to form a film on the bottom of the saucepan.  Then transfer to a bowl or in my case the bowl of your stand mixer and add one egg at a time until all are incorporated.  What you have will be a very sticky, gloppy looking batter-ish looking dough.  You can now transfer this to a piping bag and pipe little mounds of the batter onto some parchment or you can make eclair shells by piping long ropes.  If you don't do the pastry bag thing, then you can use a couple of spoons or a scoop to distribute the dough onto the baking sheets.

These bake in a 375 degree oven for about 25 to 30 minutes.  The number you get will depend on how large you have made your shells.  I did medium sized shells and got a little over 3 dozen nice cream puffs.    When they are done, just let them sit till cool.  You can pop one open to check to see if they are nice and dry on the inside.  If not, pop them back in for a few more minutes.  If you don't get them baked all the way they will collapse on themselves when they cool.

Now you are ready to make cream puffs.  Fill these will pastry cream, custard, stabilized whipped cream, mousse, even chicken or tuna salad for a beautiful lunch presentation!  You can just serve these by themselves with jam for a lovely breakfast accompaniment as well!

I am making a special dessert using these cream puff shells that I will be sharing with you in another installment, so stay tuned and I can't wait to share it with you!   There's a million things I haven't done, but just you wait!  Just you wait!

If you want to make these in advance, you can pipe them or scoop them onto a baking sheet, then freeze them till solid and pop them into a zip top bag until ready to bake, then place on a baking sheet and allow them to thaw then bake as per the instructions.  These will not freeze well after they are baked because the dough will collapse when exposed to a lot of moisture.

I hope you give this classic cream puff dough or choux paste a try the next time you want to wow someone and I hope you love it!

Happy Eating!

Noreen's Kitchen

Cream Puff Dough

Classic Choux Pastry

Ingredients

1 cup cold water 1 stick (4 ounces) butter 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon granulated sugar 1 cup all purpose flour 4 whole eggs

Step by Step Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place water, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium high heat.

Add flour and stir until it comes together in a shaggy ball.  Keep over the heat until a light film forms on the bottom of the saucepan.  When you stir and turn the dough over it will be smooth and want to stay together.

Transfer to a deep bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer allow to cool for five minutes before proceeding.

Using your mixer on low, add one egg at a time waiting until it is incorporated before adding the next one.  When you can see the mixture pulling away from the side of the bowl slightly after adding the last egg, your mixture is ready.

NOTE:  You can mix this by hand but it is very difficult toward the end as this batter gets very thick and hard to mix. 

You can now scoop the mixture using a couple of spoons or a cookie scoop or you can place the dough in a piping bag and pipe the shells you desire. 

Bake for 25 to30 minutes or until puffed, golden brown and when one is opened up you see the insides are dry and not soggy. There will be some moistness on the inside, just not wetness. 

The amount this recipe yields, depends on how big or small you choose to make your shells.  I get approximately 18 medium sized cream puff shells from one recipe.

If you wish to make these in advance, you can pipe or scoop onto a baking sheet and then freeze till solid then transfer to a zip top bag or airtight container and store in the freezer for up to 3 months until ready to bake.  To bake, lay out the desired amount on a baking sheet lined with parchment and allow to thaw.  Bake as above

See how I did this in my YouTube video:

Get your Cajun on! Homemade, Salt Free Creole Seasoning!

I am getting ready to make some delicious skillet jambalaya, so I needed to replenish my supply of creole seasoning.  I had made a similar video several years back, but we have decided to update this and make it salt free.  

The flavor profile of creole recipes can be deep and vast as far as the combination of spices and seasonings that go into a blend like this.  Creole can also be called "Cajun".  They can be interchangeable as far as terminology goes.  The Creole people settled in the swampy bayou of Louisiana, but had a long journey to get there by way of Brittany, France and then Nova Scotia and then finally the low lands of the deep south.  Blending their heritage and cooking then with the native Choctaw people, the flavors continued to bloom and grow into what we know today.

Creoles trace their heritage to the French, Spanish, Africans, Italians and other people who chose New Orleans as their home. The French began settling la Nouvelle Orleans in the early 1700's. During the French colonial period, food was characterized by traditional French sauces. Dishes were mild in flavor yet complex in preparation. Meals, prepared by African cooks, also took on a distinct African influence. Gumbo comes from the African word gumba, meaning okra. These cooks favored slow cooking over a low flame to intensify flavor blends.

My blend is salt free because I prefer to season my dishes in layers and in in some cases, depending on other ingredients of a recipe, may not require salt at all in the end.  So this seasoning blend is perfect.  If you are on a salt restricted diet, you mix this up using spices you already have on hand and have a great little jar of creole seasoning at your fingertips to sprinkle into or onto anything you like!

This blend consists of paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, basil, marjoram, parsley, thyme, black pepper and cayenne pepper.  You can add to or delete things that you like better or don't like at all.  Make this blend your own and suit your own tastes.

I will be using this in a skillet jambalaya and this seasoning does the job perfectly.  This is also lovely sprinkled on eggs, used in a dry rub for chicken, pork, fish or shrimp or even tossed into a low country boil!  The possibilities are endless for it's uses and your imagination is your only limitation here.

I hope you will give this recipe for my salt free creole seasoning a try and I hope you love it!

Happy Eating!

Get the recipe here:  http://bit.ly/1WUzs2T

Noreen's Kitchen

Salt Free Creole Seasoning

Ingredients

4 tablespoons sweet paprika 2 tablespoons garlic powder 2 tablespoons onion powder 2 tablespoons oregano 2 tablespoons basil

2 tablespoons marjoram 2 tablespoons parsley 1 tablespoon thyme 1 tablespoon black pepper 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

Step by Step Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a jar.  Seal the lid and give it a good shake.

Perfect for seasoning jambalaya, gumbo or even sprinkled into scrambled eggs or anything you love to give a kick to!

You can see how I made this in my YouTube video:

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Pick Your Produce! How to Pick the Perfect Avocado!

Today we begin a new intermittent series called "Pick Your Produce".  In this series we hope to help you understand how to best pick particular produce that may be baffling you or maybe you just never understood how to choose the best one of something or other.  Today we begin with avocados!

Avocados are often associated with Mexican food and are best known as the main ingredient in Guacamole.  It is the fruit, actually it is botanically a large berry, of the avocado tree which is native to Mexico.    The avocado tree has a long history of cultivation in central and south America and there is some evidence that this history may go back as far as 5000 B.C.!  There are many varieties of the avocado, including heritage varieties.  In America the most popular variety hails from California and is widely known by the "Haas" name.  Avocados are grown the world over in tropical and sub tropical climates.

Picking the perfect avocado is easy, if you know what you are looking for and just like with everything else, there is a learning curve.  This isn't rocket science, but there are a couple of tips and trick to help you on your way to getting the best avocado you can for your meal. 

First you have to decide if you are going to want to eat the fruit immediately or if you are going to wait a day or two.  This will determine the ripeness of the fruit you choose.  Pick avocados that are heavy for their size, they should fit in the palm of your hand.  If they are on the bright green side, this is an indication that it is not fully ripe and when you give it a gentle squeeze with your finger, and it feels heard and does not yield easily to that pressure, your avocado is not good for eating today, but it will be in a day or two. 

If you want to eat your avocado today, then look for fruits that are greenish black to black in color and again, hold in the palm of your hand and apply gentle pressure.  If the flesh yields and leave a bit of a dent then you are good to go.  If you hold the fruit and it feels mushy like a water balloon, then leave it, that one is not fit for anything but the compost. 

To ripen an avocado you can simply leave it on your counter and wait a couple of days or some people like to put them in a paper bag with either an apple or a banana and close it up and the next day they should be ready to eat.

When your avocado is ripe you can cut it around the middle and give it a gentle twist and it should separate from the pit easily.  If you are only going to eat half, eat the half without the pit.  Leave the pit in the other half and put it in a plastic bag or sealed container with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.  Leaving the pit in the other half will help it to retain its freshness.  At least that is my personal experience.  Store any ripe avocados in the fridge till you are ready to use them.  Don't buy more than you can eat in a few days.

Avocados are a love it or hate it type of fruit.  In our house we have two who LOVE them one who HATES them and one who can take them or leave them.  I could personally eat avocados all day long.  The are often seen on the side of a sandwich, or in a salad or on some hearty toast for breakfast.  They are also known to be thrown into a smoothie every now and then to add rich creaminess without adding dairy.

Avocados are nutrient dense super food that everyone can benefit from enjoying.  They are the only food to naturally contain good monounsaturated fats.  That is good fat for you and I!   They are naturally cholesterol and sodium free! Nutrient dense avocados provide a substantial amount of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients with relatively few calories. One-fifth of a medium avocado has 50 calories and contributes nearly 20 vitamins and minerals, making it a great nutrient dense food choice.  Avocados act as a “nutrient booster” by helping  to increase absorption of fat-soluble nutrients like Vitamins A, D, K and E.  So in short avocados are awesome for your health!  Avocados are also an excellent "first food" for baby!  The smooth creamy texture is something that most little ones will enjoy and with all the nutritional benefits contained in that little green fruit, how can you go wrong! 

So I hope this is helpful information about how to pick the perfect avocado for you to enjoy today tomorrow or the day after!  I hope that you will use it well and enjoy avocados more often!  While they are available most of the year, the spring/summer season is the time they are most plentiful and at their peak of deliciousness.  So that is how you pick your produce in avocados! 

I hope you give this method a try and I hope you love it!

Happy Eating!

You can see my demonstration of how to choose a great avocado in my YouTube video here:

New Year to Bring New Changes!

The new year will be upon us in a day or two and with the dawn of a fresh, new, squeaky clean slate, comes the realization that we actually have to work for our successes!  That being the case with my Noreen's Kitchen website.  I was notified by my website hosting company that they would be phasing out the current website builder that I have been using for the last three years and that I would have to begin using the new and improved version.  Why can't things be easy?  I can't simply migrate the over 300 pages that I have already published to the new version, I have to put my current website into a holding pattern while I rebuild it in the newer version of their builder.  Messy, messy, messy!  What a phenomenal waste of my time, you might say, if it were you and I would tend to agree.  However I cannot change how this is going to work and since they didn't ask me first, I will simply have to acquiesce and deal with it in my own way.

The way we will be dealing with this is that I will be rebuilding Noreen's Kitchen website from the ground up.  I will be hopefully going back through my YouTube videos and posting all the recipes I have done videos for so that you can refer at any given time to make the recipes that I have demonstrated.  I have wanted to do this for a while, but simply could not find the time.  Now I have no choice.  I have also wanted to revamp the visual and graphic aspects of the website and make it more pleasing to the eye and streamlined.  I am hoping that I can achieve that as well and make your experience while visiting very pleasant and make you want to come back on a regular basis!  All these things are positive approaches and the changes will, no doubt be positive as well.  I have learned a lot over the last 5 years of having my channel and 3 years of my website and I am going to implement the things I have wanted, to make everything easier to deal with.

All of this is going to take time.  I estimate, if I really work hard at it, and still keep up with my channel uploads, it will take me between 6 and 8 weeks to totally revamp the site from start to finish.  I ask patience from all of you who rely on the site to download and print my recipes.  No worries, though, the current version of the site will remain the same until the new version is available to be published.  You will still be able to access the site for printing out your favorite recipes until the new site is done.

Please sign up for email notifications through this blog and you will get an email each time I upload and post a new entry and/or recipe.  All of this is part of my goals for the new year.  One of which was to post a blog entry to coordinate with my video upload as well as post the recipe on my website and pay more attention to all my other social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and Instagram.  In time I will get a good schedule going and a checklist.  

In the last year, I have learned a lot.  As many of you know, I left a mainstream job about a year ago when my boss was elected as a judge and my office closed.  My husband Rick and I decided to try making my YouTube channel, website and blog our business.  So far it is working and we see great things in our future,  but we know we cannot rest on our laurels and we have to keep working very hard to get where we want to go.  We have you to thank for our continued success.  Without your support, feedback and love, we would definitely not be as successful as we have been and hope to be in the future!

It is our hope that you stick with us through this transition, which should be relatively painless.  Just look here on this blog for recipe posts.  I am uncertain if I can post PDFs, but I will find that out in good time.  If not, you will have to copy and paste for a short period of time.  

Thanks in advance for your understanding, continued support and constant participation in making our online community a wonderful place to be!

Salad Days: A Promise To Try and Eat More Salads All Year Long

This post is a collaboration with Williams-Sonoma, but all words and opinions are my own.

When I was growing up we would sometimes have salad with dinner.  It was usually as an accompaniment to a grilled steak or chicken and during the summer  months when it was much too hot, in Tucson, Arizona to be thinking about turning on the oven.  My mom would often put me in charge of tossing the dinner salad together and it always had the same ingredients; iceberg lettuce, tomato wedges and sliced cucumbers.  Onions were left on the side because my brother would not come withing 10 feet of them and my dad did not care for them on his salad.  Break out the bottled dressing and salad was served.  I never really liked salad much when I was a kid.  

When I was in college, pasta salads became very popular (yes, I know that I am dating myself).  Cooked, cold pasta mixed with chunks of Mozzarella cheese, cubes of pepperoni and chopped onions, sliced black olives and sometimes some peppers thrown in for good measure.  Pour on some bottled dressing and voila'! Salad as a meal!   Who doesn't love a good pasta salad?  I haven't had one like this in quite a while.  Kind of makes me want one, come to think of it.  

All of this reminiscing is great, a walk down salad memory lane, if you will, but salad can be and is so much more than just a wedge of iceberg lettuce drowned in blue cheese dressing and a couple of cherry tomatoes tossed on the plate for show.  Yes salad is whatever you want it to be and I think we sometimes forget that we can make almost anything into a salad.

Traditionally, salads are cold but they can be served warm or hot as well.  They can be just greens dressed with a simply vinaigrette made with lemon and olive oil, or they can be full of everything but greens and lettuce.  I personally love a chopped salad sans lettuce.  Sometimes I just think lettuce gets in the way of all that other earthy goodness.  How about throwing some cubed bread for a Panzanella or Tuscan bread salad?  What about using cooked rice, Quinoa, couscous or Millet as a base for a dinner salad?  The possibilities are endless!

There is really no good reason not to be eating more salad.  I, for one, have promised myself that I will serve more salads, hot, cold and everything in between to my family this coming year.  It is my hope that we can love this new path and use it as an opportunity to explore new combinations of ingredients that we can enjoy together at our supper table.  My girls love salad!  My oldest, Molly loves it however she can get it, with lots of greens or with none at all, with grilled chicken or steak, Caesar or Asian style, you name it, she loves it and actually craves salad.  Not bad for a 15 year old right?  My youngest is a bit more finicky but I'm working on her.  Right now she will only eat salad that is made with fresh baby spinach and hard cooked eggs, she only eats the tomatoes on the side and she likes it with ranch dressing.  Like I said, I'm working on her!  As for myself and my husband, we both love them as well, but I just don't think about them being a meal as often as I should.  

So off I go to try and make salad a bigger part of our lives.  I hope you will consider this as well. We can make our lives a bit easier with salad and we can make our bodies a little healthier with them as well.  The good folks at Williams-Sonoma have devised a wonderful chart along with recipes that provide a seemingly endless variety of salad recipes for us to work through.  Have a look and see what you like and start eating salad tonight!

Check them out here:

Click Here to See Great Salad Ideas at Williams-Sonoma

Here are a couple of salad ideas that we love at our house:

Asian Chicken Salad

Ginger Sesame Dressing

Taco Salad with Homemade Chili

I hope you try these and I hope you love them!  I also hope you check out the link to Williams-Sonoma and get some great ideas for salad dinners at your house!

Happy Eating!

You can see lots more recipes and ideas on my website

http://www.noreenskitchen.com